Madam, - I read Susan Philips's article "Burning
beats burying when it comes to waste treatment" (Dec 1st ) with
total disbelief. Ms Philips goes to great lengths to convince us that
incineration is a much better option than burying waste. Inexplicably,
however, she fails to address what Ireland intends to do with the
hundreds of thousands of tonnes of highly toxic ash waste which these
incinerators will generate.

Ms Philips seems to be blissfully unaware that
this dioxin-laden ash is infinitely more noxious than the original
waste and that it will also have to be buried in the ground. The fly
ash portion of this waste is particularly hazardous.

Six years ago, during the Belgian dioxin crisis,
I was stationed at Felixstowe border inspection post as an official
veterinary inspector. A blanket ban had been placed on the importation
of foodstuffs from Belgium because of feared dioxin contamination.
This crisis cost the Belgian economy millions of pounds as well as
a major loss in consumer confidence and was later found to have resulted
from just one gramme of dioxin.

Irish milk and milk produce currently have the
lowest dioxin levels in Europe. This competitive advantage will be
lost if we go down the burning route as municipal solid waste incinerators
are by far the greatest source of dioxin in the world.

Ms Philips, in her December 16th letter, asks
her detractors to "show the mothers of Ireland what they are
supposed to do with their plastic nappies, please". The World
Health Organisation announced on February 14th, 1997 that dioxin was
a "class one carcinogen".

Dioxin is highly toxic at levels of nanograms
and picograms and crosses the placenta, gaining access to the unborn
child. It is also passed on in the milk of lactating animals and in
the breast milk of the human female. Perhaps Ms Philips would like
to advise the mothers of Ireland what they are supposed to do when
they have dioxin in their breasts and in their unborn babies. - Yours,
etc,